The Adaptation-Relevance Model In Cross-cultural Communication

Communication is at the core of our humanness and is the basis of all human contacts. Without communication, we would be unable to survive. Therefore, human communication has been causing widespread concern among scholars. In their studies, scholars of different schools attempt to project a general theory of communication, and thus come into being different models of communication, such as the code model, the inferential model, the ostensive-inferential model and the adaptation model. So far, however, few models of communication are adequately convincing.Inspired by the previous studies, this thesis has given an analytical investigation and explanation of the adaptation-relevance model integrated by Relevance Theory and Adaptation Theory from the perspective of pragmatics. With a view to explaining the production and interpretation of speech act in cross-cultural communication, the adaptation-relevance model will be more adequately convincing to promote language users'cross-cultural pragmatic awareness and competence and improve their linguistic and pragmatic performance so as to minimize the possibility of or even avoid misunderstanding in cross-cultural communication and meanwhile make its contribution to the systematization of the study on cross-cultural communication. The thesis is composed of four chapters.Chapter 1 reviews the related literature of the models of communication. It also discusses the problems of previous models of communication and proposes the perspective of the present study.Chapter 2 elaborates on the adaptation-relevance model from four aspects: communication as relevance-oriented; the adaptation-relevance as adaptation between linguistic choices and contextual choices; the presumption of relevance deciding choices of a particular utterance; and the adaptation-relevance as strategy-choosing.In cross-cultural communication, the cognitive, social and cultural factors may cause barriers in the interlocutors'choice-making process. Based on the adaptation-relevance model, chapter 3 analyzes the interadaptation between linguistic choices and the three contextual correlates of the mental world, the social world and the physical world with comparison between the Chinese and the English.Chapter 4 is concerned with the applications of the adaptation-relevance model to certain hot issues discussed in the field of cross-cultural pragmatics, i.e. the speech act. In the light of the adaptation-relevance model, the choice of a particular speech act out of many others is made on the basis of the principle of relevance, involving the communicator's adaptation to the three contextual correlates, i.e., physical world, social world and mental world. What is more, by analyzing speech act with the adaptation-relevance model, this thesis gives new interpretation of one major source of misunderstanding in cross-cultural communication.In the conclusion, the author summarizes what has been discussed in the thesis, lists the limitations of the present study and gives suggestions for future research.